Town dweller

The urban Arab living in Jaffa is relatively less likely than the Arab villager to develop friendly contacts outside the family circle. Villagers tend to spend time with neighbours and friends more than towndwellers whatever their level of education. On the other hand, citydwellers spend more time at the cinema.

Moreover, just as some literate laymen were to be found at the secular court, so is the same increasingly true of towndwellers, first as scribal transactions move from Latin to the vernacular,²⁶⁰ then as merchants, perhaps still illiterate, see the advantages of schooling for their songs.²⁶¹ Like the princely courts towndwellers depend on clerical litterati and also see the point of acquiring literacy for themselves.

Seen from one particular urban area a 'permanent towndweller' may be a transient towndweller and thus little different than the man who commutes daily between town and village.